Bangor detectives investigating death of man on Union Street

BANGOR, Maine — Detectives with the Bangor Police Department are investigating the death Thursday of a local man whom police described as a transient.

Gordon McLaughlin, 46, reportedly died at an apartment building on Union Street, where he was visiting a friend, Bangor police Detective David Bushey said Friday. The address of the apartment building was not released.

The death was reported shortly before 11:40 p.m., according to an incident summary report issued by the Penobscot Regional Communications Center.

Bushey said the death is not considered suspicious and that while police have not requested an autopsy, the state medical examiner has been notified. He declined to comment on the cause of McLaughlin’s death.

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McLaughlin was arrested in late November of last year after he unwittingly sold drugs to undercover agents. He was charged with two counts of aggravated drug trafficking, each of them a Class A felony carrying a penalty of up to 30 years in prison and up to $50,000 in fines.

Darrell Crandall, commander of the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency’s Division II, said at the time that McLaughlin was accused of selling heroin and cocaine to drug agents on two occasions.

Crandall also said that state drug investigators believe that McLaughlin was among the large group of people linked to a suspected cocaine ring that was broken up last Nov. 2 as the result of a pair of drug raids that state and federal drug agents and Bangor police conducted at neighboring apartment buildings at 100 and 102 Ohio St.

McLaughlin’s criminal history includes convictions in 2003 for assault, obstructing the report of a crime, violating conditions of release and unlawful trafficking in scheduled drugs, according to the BDN archives.